Financial Plan of the Bridges Project is Unrealistic
Note: This was published in the April 1 C-J
In January Kentuckiana Transportation Action Partnership, a coalition of 25 citizen organizations and businesses, went to Frankfort with a specific message for legislators - "the financial plan of the Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges Project is unrealistic". The Senate and the House both responded with new funding legislation. The new “Creative Financing” plans are equally unrealistic. The public is not going to accept tolling one, two or all bridges, higher vehicle registration fees ($30-$40 increases), higher local gas taxes, higher sales taxes, insurance taxes, higher property taxes, hotel room taxes, car rental taxes, local taxing districts, private development financial participation, and public borrowing (bonds and bond secured grants).
The Bridges Project not only ignores funding realities, but it also fails to address broader financial/economic concerns. It ignores the energy and environmental realities of the 21st Century. Nor does it address the needs of all people, regardless of socioeconomic status.
Where is the wisdom of building more interstate highway capacity as fuel prices become unaffordable, as an aging population can no longer drive, as youth demand non-automotive mobility, as earth's climate destabilizes, as local economies reduce the need to truck material great distances, as freight shifts from road to rail, as military action in oil fields consumes the petroleum that escapes destruction in the conflict, and as Kentuckiana awakens to the need to walk, bicycle and ride the bus?
Investment in two interstate highway bridges is a bad investment in more private motor vehicle infrastructure. Investment in one interstate highway bridge (per 8664 or Riverfields) is a bad investment postponing our investment in public transit.
One bridge or two bridges - both are bad ideas. Invest regionally in public transit and make our streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.
Jackie Green
A founder of KTAP, co-owner of the Bike Couriers Bike Shop, and Mayoral Candidate - 2010
www.ktap.org - www.bikecourier.org - www.thegreeningoflouisville.org
Louisville 40202
Comments
Indiana's role in financing the bridges
The budget approved by the Kentucky General Assembly in early April allows for bonds and future tolling, and that was enough for Kentucky Secretary of Transportation Joe Prather to certify that the Louisville Southern-Indiana Ohio River Bridges Project remains "on track" through the next biennium. How can it be that a budget that allocates zero real dollars, only the prospect of borrowing and tolling, can earn that assessment by Kentucky's Transportation Secretary and also win praise from the Build the Bridges coalition? (See their press release at:
http://www.buildthebridges.com/documents/State%20Budget%204-2-08.pdf
...)
The optimism among those who want the bridges may ultimately reside in a confidence that the financial backstay for this project, especially for the East End bridge, is the commitment to LSIORB by Indiana public officials and commercial interests. In the April 7 telecast of KET's "Kentucky Tonight," Kentucky Senate President David Williams said that he and others in Frankfort received a letter during the session in which "Six Southern Indiana Representatives urged us to go forward." Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has said that he would not rule out lending money to Kentucky in order to complete the East End Bridge. So, Hoosiers appear ready to buy Kentucky's bonds, and the "unrealistic" financial plan for the bridges suddenly becomes ... "realistic." (For the KET telecast (Bridges discussion is about 1/3 into the program) see and hear:
http://www.ket.org/cgi-bin/cheetah/watch_video.pl?nola=KKYTO+001518&altdir=&template=
...)
In order to oppose and prevent the construction of more undesirable interstate automotive infrastructure in this region, it may be necessary -- at least in the instance of the East End bridge -- to adopt tactics different from KTAP's declarations of financial shortfall.